I've written about health care for more than two decades, starting from my native Iowa where I covered the presidential campaign bus rides of Bill and Hillary Clinton through the Hawkeye state talking health reform and the economy. I have covered the rise, fall and rise again of health reform, chronicling national trends as well as the influence of Barack and Michelle Obama from Chicago's South Side on changes to the U.S. health system from my base in Chicago. I am the author of the new Forbes signature series book, "Inside Obamacare: The Fix For America's Ailing Health Care System." I was health care business reporter at the Chicago Tribune (1998-2011) and previously wrote for Modern Healthcare magazine when first arriving in Chicago in 1993. Prior to that, I wrote for several Iowa newspapers including the Des Moines Register. These days, I contribute stories to the New York Times, Chicago Medicine magazine and teach in the University of Iowa School of Journalism MA in Strategic Communication program. You can see me nationally on Fox News Channel's "Forbes on Fox" show. In Chicago, you can hear my health segments and business analysis on WBBM newsradio 780 and 105.9 FM. I am passionate about health literacy when it comes to explaining the complexities of health care. A better understood health system may save someone some money or their life.

Obamacare Rolls Out Hospice Care Penalties And Quality Focus

Providers of hospice care, which will be caring for a booming population of aging baby boomers, were told Friday they get a 1 percent pay raise and a mandate to report quality measures to the U.S. government or essentially lose that raise come Oct. 1. In this photo, an elder care nurse works in India.(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Providers of hospice care, which will be caring for a booming population of aging baby boomers, were told they get a 1 percent pay raise from the Medicare program and a mandate to report quality measures to the U.S. government or essentially lose that raise come Oct. 1.

The move comes at a time hospitals, doctors and providers of medical-care of all kinds are being coaxed away from fee-for-service medicine to an era when they are paid base on the value of medical care that they provide. Translation: they must provide quality care or be punished in the form of less payment.

For now, hospice providers merely have to report the data. Unlike health insurance companies and others, there are no ratings that have been issued to hospice providers from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It’s called the “Hospice Quality Reporting Program” and specifics can be found at this link here.

“(The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’) goal is to adopt measures for the Hospice Quality Reporting Program that ensure care is patient and family-centered and is safe and high-quality,” Dr. Patrick Conway, chief medical officer and director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Life Matters Media last week. “It is critical that hospice providers meet the care needs of all patients and families.”

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Friday issued the final rule on hospice payments and the upcoming quality reporting requirements on Friday.

“Hospices will be required to begin using the survey in 2015,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.

The momentum behind quality reporting in hospices comes as both the government and private insurers and employers contract with entities that measure quality and push for better outcomes through entities like accountable care organizations (ACOs), which are created by providers of medical care to contract with insurance companies like AetnaAetna (AET), UnitedHealth GroupUnitedHealth Group (UNH), HumanaHumana (HUM) and CignaCigna (CI) among others. If the ACO reduces costs while improving quality, the providers keep some of the savings. That is different than payment today that encourages excessive treatment by paying by procedure.

“The survey will include questions on hospice provider communications with patients and families, hospice provider care, and overall rating of hospice,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said. “CMS will include participation in the survey as a quality-reporting requirement for hospices to receive their full annual payment update beginning in FY 2017.”

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Insurance companies have no place in our healthcare system They are and have been the problem all along. They were the ones who should have been watching the store the last 50 years but instead just kept raising rates. Look where we are now. Up against the virtual wall. National healthcare is the only way to give everyone guaranteed healthcare. How can we get quality healthcare when the ONLY thing insurance companies are interested in is profit. It does not work on paper and does not work in practice. Every civilized country in the world has national healthcare because they do not have their politicians taking bribes from these special interests. That is why we cannot get this together in this country. Insurance companies would lose millions. They do not give one crap about any of us. Our people here have to wake up and realize how they are being played like violins.

They are either rich or somebody pays for it-doctors care for them for free. The people in this state got fed up that the state was making grants to pay for foreigners, while residents of the state lacked medical care in many basic things. The air fare- having a place to live was all free-while I had students born here that couldn’t afford medical care for simple things-like surgery for cross-eyed people-cheap-easy-but their parents maybe made a dollar a month too much to get assistance, and the hospital and doctors didn’t care–Shame on this state.

@John Rizoli – you’re correct. Since Nixon signed MCOs into law in the 70′s, it’s been one huge profit over another with denial of claims being the first step for every private insurer out there. It’s sad that medicine was turned into a profit making business instead of the “profession” it was before MCOs.

Karen, I love you. Most, or should I say the majority are in some fucking dreamworld. I honestly am getting worn out. Why does the average American not see these issues that are hitting them on the head like a sledgehammer and somehow refuse to see the reality? I will not give up and I have not even begun to refute the rest of my feelings when it comes to these matters. What the hell is wrong with everyone. They seem to just need a scapegoat to blame everything one and for some reason it is not our congress which is the actual root of all these issues…? I do not have a clue

Kenneth Wallace, Where did you get the fact that “people from other countries coming here for their surgeries and our expertise”?

Oh I am sorry, you are a Republican lunatic and thus have NO use for facts. Now when pressed as to where did you got the fact backing this claim, they will state that Wall Street Journal or Fox News reported it! Now if there was an ounce of truth to this fact then the Conservative parties in Europe & Canada would be running against NHS and for US style for profit Wall Street health care system, which of course is not the case since all Conservative parties in Europe & Canada are 100% for their NHS. And there is actually an irrefutable proof of this lie: that is the same day that Wall Street Journal ran articles stating that “Europeans & Canadians are coming to US for their health care” which they have many times, the same day this story was missing from Europeans & Canadian versions of Wall Street Journal. WHY? Because it is a total lie. And if they had printed this lie in their Europeans & Canadians versions people in those countries would have burned the Wall Street Journal down for stating such an insidious lie.

Rich people come to Mayo Clinic in Minn. and other hospitals. Then American hospitals extend charity on people from third world countries. They used to consider it good publicity. My state went sour on that a few years ago-We kept asking why are foreigners given free medical care here, when this is one of the poorest state and many people can’t get medical care-usually because they make fifty cents a month too much.

Kenneth Wallace , Where did you get the fact that: “People from other countries coming here for their surgeries” ?

Oh I am sorry, you are a Republican lunatic and thus have NO use for facts.

Now when pressed as to where did you got the fact backing this claim, they will state that Wall Street Journal or Fox News reported it! Now if there was an ounce of truth to this fact then the Conservative parties in Europe & Canada would be running against NHS and for US style for profit Wall Street health care system, which of course is not the case since all Conservative parties in Europe & Canada are 100% for their NHS. And there is actually an irrefutable proof of this lie: that is the same day that Wall Street Journal ran articles stating that “Europeans & Canadians are coming to US for their health care” which they have many times, the same day this story was missing from Europeans & Canadian versions of Wall Street Journal. WHY? Because it is a total lie. And if they had printed this lie in their Europeans & Canadians versions people in those countries would have burned the Wall Street Journal down for stating such an insidious lie.